Tyne and Wear

In the late 600s and into the 700s Saint Bede lived as a monk at the monastery of St. Peter and of St. Paul writing histories of the Early Middle Ages including the Ecclesiastical History of the English People.[6]

Roughly 150 years ago, in the village of Marsden in South Shields, Souter Lighthouse was built, the first electric structure of this type.[7]

The Local Government Act 1888 constituted Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead and Sunderland as county boroughs (Newcastle had "county corporate" status as the "County and Town of Newcastle upon Tyne" since 1400). Tynemouth joined them in 1904. Between the county boroughs, various other settlements also formed part of the administrative counties of Durham and of Northumberland.

The need to reform local government on Tyneside was recognised by the government as early as 1935, when a Royal Commission to Investigate the Conditions of Local Government on Tyneside was appointed.[8] The three commissioners were to

examine the system of local government in the areas of local government north and south of the river Tyne from the sea to the boundary of the Rural District of Castle Ward and Hexham in the County of Northumberland and to the Western boundary of the County of Durham, to consider what changes, if any, should be made in the existing arrangements with a view to securing greater economy and efficiency, and to make recommendations.

Population density map

The report of the Royal Commission, published in 1937,[9] recommended the establishment of a Regional Council for Northumberland and Tyneside (to be called the "Northumberland Regional Council") to administer services that needed to be exercised over a wide area, with a second tier of smaller units for other local-government purposes. The second-tier units would form by amalgamating the various existing boroughs and districts. The county boroughs in the area would lose their status. Within this area, a single municipality would be formed covering the four county boroughs of Newcastle, Gateshead, Tynemouth, South Shields and other urban districts and boroughs.[10]

A minority report proposed amalgamation of Newcastle, Gateshead, Wallsend, Jarrow, Felling, Gosforth, Hebburn and Newburn into a single "county borough of Newcastle-on-Tyneside". The 1937 proposals never came into operation: local authorities could not agree on a scheme and the legislation of the time did not allow central government to compel one.[11]

Tyneside (excluding Sunderland) was a Special Review Area under the Local Government Act 1958. The Local Government Commission for England came back with a recommendation to create a new county of Tyneside based on the review area, divided into four separate boroughs. This was not implemented. The Redcliffe-Maud Report proposed a Tyneside unitary authority, again excluding Sunderland, which would have set up a separate East Durham unitary authority.

The White Paper that led to the Local Government Act 1972 proposed as "area 2" a metropolitan county including Newcastle and Sunderland, extending as far south down the coast as Seaham and Easington, and bordering "area 4" (which would become Tees Valley). The Bill as presented in November 1971 pruned back the southern edge of the area, and gave it the name "Tyneside". The name "Tyneside" proved controversial on Wearside, and a government amendment changed the name to "Tyne and Wear" at the request of Sunderland County Borough Council.[12]

post-1974		pre-1974
Metropolitan county	Metropolitan borough	County boroughs	Non-county boroughs	Urban districts	Rural districts
Tyne and Wear amalgamates 24 former local government districts, including five county boroughs.	Gateshead	Gateshead	-	Blaydon • Felling • Ryton • Whickham	Chester-le-Street
	Newcastle upon Tyne	Newcastle upon Tyne	-	Gosforth • Newburn	Castle Ward
	North Tyneside	Tynemouth	Wallsend • Whitley Bay	Longbenton • Seaton Valley	-
	South Tyneside	South Shields	Jarrow	Boldon • Hebburn	-
	Sunderland	Sunderland	-	Washington • Houghton-le-Spring • Hetton-le-Hole	Easington

Tyne and Wear either has or closely borders two official Met Office stations, neither located in one of the major urban centres. The locations for those are in marine Tynemouth where Tyne meets the North Sea east of Newcastle and inland Durham in County Durham around 20 kilometres (12 mi) south-west of Sunderland. There are some clear differences between the stations temperature and precipitation patterns even though both have a cool-summer and mild-winter oceanic climate.

Although Tyne and Wear County Council was abolished in 1986, several joint bodies exist to run certain services on a county-wide basis. Most notable is the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Authority, which co-ordinates transport policy. Through its passenger transport executive, known as Nexus, it owns and operates the Tyne and Wear Metro light rail system, and the Shields ferry service and the Tyne Tunnel, linking communities on either side of the River Tyne. Also through Nexus, the authority subsidises socially necessary transport services (including taxis) and operates a concessionary fares scheme for the elderly and disabled. Nexus has been an executive body of the North East Joint Transport Committee since November 2018.

Other joint bodies include the Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service and Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, which was created from the merger of the Tyne and Wear Archives Service and Tyne and Wear Museums. These joint bodies are administered by representatives of all five of the constituent councils. In addition the Northumbria Police force covers Northumberland and Tyne and Wear.

There have been occasional calls for Tyne and Wear to be abolished and the traditional border between Northumberland and County Durham to be restored.[18][19]

Tyne and Wear is divided into 12 Parliamentary constituencies. Historically, the area has been a Labour stronghold; South Shields is the only Parliamentary constituency that has never returned a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons since the Reform Act of 1832.

At the level of local government, all of the region's five unitary authorities were controlled by Labour in 2019.

Newcastle and Sunderland are known for declaring their election results early on election night.[20] Therefore, they frequently give the first indication of nationwide trends. An example of this was at the 2016 European Union referendum. Newcastle was the first large city to declare, and 50.6% of voters voted to Remain; this proportion was far lower than predicted by experts. Sunderland declared soon after and gave a 62% vote to Leave, much higher than expected. These two results were seen as an early sign that the United Kingdom had voted to Leave.

Commuter rail services in the region

Italics indicate the district centre. For a complete list of all villages, towns and cities see the list of places in Tyne and Wear.

• Gateshead
  • Angel of the North
  • Beamish Museum, which straddles the Gateshead/County Durham boundary
  • BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
  • Dunston Staiths
  • Gateshead International Stadium
  • Gateshead Millennium Bridge
  • Gibside
  • MetroCentre
  • Saltwell Park
  • Shipley Art Gallery
  • Tanfield Railway, Sunniside (crosses boundary into County Durham)
  • The Sage Gateshead
  • Tyne Bridge (Shared with Newcastle upon Tyne)
• Newcastle upon Tyne
  • Discovery Museum (previously Museum of Science & Engineering)
  • Hadrian's Wall
  • Hancock Museum
  • Jesmond Dene public park
  • Newcastle Castle Keep
  • St James' Park
  • Leazes Park
  • Centre for Life
  • Town Moor
  • Tyneside cinema
  • Chinatown, Newcastle
  • Quayside
  • Utilita Arena Newcastle
  • Newcastle Cathedral
  • Laing Art Gallery
  • Theatre Royal
  • Northumberland Street
  • Grey Street
  • Grey's Monument
  • The Biscuit Factory
  • Tyne Bridge (Shared with Gateshead)
• North Tyneside
  • Segedunum Roman Fort & Museum, Wallsend
  • St Mary's Island bird reserve
  • Tynemouth Castle
• South Tyneside
  • Arbeia Roman Fort & Museum, South Shields
  • Marsden Rock bird reserve
  • Souter Point Lighthouse
  • Bede's World, Jarrow
• Sunderland
  • The Museum and Winter Gardens
  • Mowbray Park
  • Seaburn Beach and Roker Beach
  • Barnes Park
  • The National Glass
  • Hylton Castle
  • Penshaw Monument
  • St. Peter's Church
  • Sunderland Minster
  • Stadium of Light
  • The Empire Theatre
  • Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art

Newcastle Brown Ale – the yen an anny (which means "the one and only" in Tyneside dialect.)

Offshore Group Newcastle make oil platforms. Sage Group, who produce accounting software, are based at Hazlerigg at the northern end of the Newcastle bypass. Northern Rock, which became a bank in 1997 and was taken over by Virgin Money in November 2011, and the Newcastle Building Society are based in Gosforth. The Gosforth-based bakery Greggs now has over 1,500 shops. The Balliol Business Park in Longbenton contains Procter & Gamble research and global business centres and a tax credits call centre for HMRC, and is the former home of Findus UK. The Government National Insurance Contributions Office in Longbenton, demolished and replaced in 2000, had a 1 mile (1.6 km) long corridor.

Be-Ro and the Go-Ahead Group bus company are in central Newcastle. Nestlé use the former Rowntrees chocolate factory on the east of the A1. BAE Systems Land & Armaments in Scotswood, formerly Vickers-Armstrongs, is the main producer of British Army tanks such as the Challenger 2. A Rolls-Royce apprentice training site is next door.[21] Siemens Energy Service Fossil make steam turbines at the CA Parsons Works in South Heaton. Sir Charles Parsons invented the steam turbine in 1884, and developed an important local company. Domestos, a product whose main ingredient is sodium hypochlorite, was originated in Newcastle in 1929 by William Handley, and was distributed from the area for many years.

Clarke Chapman is next to the A167 in Gateshead. The MetroCentre, the largest shopping centre in Europe, is in Dunston. Scottish & Newcastle was the largest UK-owned brewery until it was bought by Heineken and Carlsberg in April 2008, and produced Newcastle Brown Ale at the Newcastle Federation Brewery in Dunston until production moved to Tadcaster in September 2010. At Team Valley are De La Rue, with their largest banknote printing facility, and Myson Radiators, the second largest in the UK market. Petards make surveillance equipment including ANPR cameras, and its Joyce-Loebl division makes electronic warfare systems and countermeasure dispensing systems such as the AN/ALE-47. Sevcon, an international company formed from a part of Smith Electric, is a world leader in electric vehicle controls. AEI Cables and Komatsu UK construction equipment at Birtley.

J. Barbour & Sons make outdoor clothing in Simonside, Jarrow. SAFT Batteries make primary lithium batteries on the Tyne in South Shields. Bellway plc houses is in Seaton Burn in North Tyneside. Cobalt Business Park, the largest office park in the UK, is at Wallsend, on the former site of Atmel, and is the home of North Tyneside Council. Swan Hunter until 2006 made ships in Wallsend, and still designs ships. Soil Machine Dynamics in Wallsend on the Tyne makes Remotely operated underwater vehicles, and its Ultra Trencher 1 is the world's largest submersible robot.

Nissan UK off the A19 near Sunderland

The car dealership Evans Halshaw is in Sunderland. The car factory owned by Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK between North Hylton and Washington is the largest in the UK. Grundfos, the world's leading pump manufacturer, builds pumps in Sunderland. Calsonic Kansei UK, formerly Magna, make automotive instrument panels and car trim at the Pennywell Industrial Estate. Gestamp UK make automotive components. Smith Electric Vehicles originated in Washington. The LG Electronics microwave oven factory opened in 1989, closed in May 2004, and later became the site of the Tanfield Group. Goodyear Dunlop had their only UK car tyre factory next to the Tanfield site until its 2006 closure. BAE Systems Global Combat Systems moved to a new £75 million factory at the former Goodyear site in 2011, where they make large calibre ammunition for tanks and artillery.

The government's child benefit office is in Washington. Liebherr build cranes next to the Wear at Deptford. The outdoor clothing company Berghaus is in Castletown. Vaux Breweries, who owned Swallow Hotels, closed in 1999. ScS Sofas are on Borough Road. There are many call centres in Sunderland, notably EDF Energy at the Doxford International Business Park, which is also the home of the headquarters of the large international transport company Arriva and Nike UK. Rolls-Royce planned to move their production of fan and turbine discs to BAE Systems' new site in 2016.

• List of Lord Lieutenants of Tyne and Wear
• List of High Sheriffs of Tyne and Wear
• Tyne–Wear derby

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tyne and Wear.

• Images of Tyne and Wear at the English Heritage Archive
• Tyne and Wear at Curlie